Monday, February 18, 2013

Another example of Versailles beautiful: unattractive utility boxes transformed into a decorative landmark near a kindergarten and a Montessori school. With encouragement from a poodle, children disguised as Pierrot have a snack. The mural is one of many realized around Versailles by its Ecole d'Art Mural.

Vocabularygrignoter: to snackun goûter: a snackgoûter: to tastel'heure de goûter: snack timeun caniche: a poodle

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

One of the reasons Paris authorities once banned the throwing of paper confetti at the Carnaval de Pariswas because confetti fights were so much fun people were scooping it up off the dirty streets to re-throw it, posing what was perceived to be public hygiene issues. The ban was in force from 1919 thru 1932, with the exception of 1922 when it was authorized by a tolerant and short-term préfet de police.

Paper confetti, as opposed to the traditional Italian confetti made of plaster chips, first came wildly into vogue during the Mardi Gras celebrations in Paris 1892. Above is a Toulouse-Lautrec poster created for a London confetti manufacturer in 1894. At the time, to shower a woman with confetti was considered an amorous advance, which only added to the moral controversy that raged over the probity of tolerating a city-wide letting go, as it were, for the time of the carnival period.

Vocabularyun préfet de police: a police commissioner, a chief constable

Saturday, February 2, 2013

In the middle of the the pretty Place Saint-Georges in the 9th arrondissement rises a monumental reminder that for five centuries the Carnaval de Paris counted among the world's most important Mardi Gras celebrations. The bust of Paul Gavarni, a famous 19th-century artistknown for his illustrations of the Paris carnival, is mounted on a charming pedestal in bas-relief of typical carnival figures. Among the characters is the débardeuse, a woman in pants disguised as a stevedore--a costume which became popular because it was simple and fast to make.

Liberating and amusing, this costume was also considered to be erotic and against bonnes mœurs. Up to and thru the 19th century, Paris had a law that forbade women from dressing like men except during carnival celebrations. Outside of that period a woman in trousers could be fined if she didn't have a special authorization to wear them, issued by the police commissioner. To obtain that, she had to have a doctor's certificate attesting that she needed to wear pants for medical reasons.

By the 1950's, an accumulation of moral restrictions to curb the revel-rousing and licentiousness during the month-long carnival celebrations, as well as economic limitations--it cost money to clean up the city after the festivities--led the popular event to become nearly forgotten. The Carnaval de Paris has in recent times been revived, but on a much smaller scale. This year's carnival is set to start on Sunday, February 10.

Vocabularyl'oubli: obliviontomber dans l'oubli: to sink into oblivionune débardeuse, un débardeur: a woman disguised in pants at carnaval time (above); a docker, stevedore; a sleeveless tee-shirtles bonnes mœurs: habits or behavior conforming to the morality, religion or culture of a peoplele carnaval: carnival